The Hold Steady to tour with Dave Matthews, Counting Crows

It's hard to imagine Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn suffers from a low-self esteem. But what else can one surmise from this announcement?

In a shocking display of sheepishness, talk rock megalodons the Hold Steady will spend most of their May touring in support (that's right, support) of Counting Crows and the Dave Matthews Band. Despite some hometown loyalties to the former local heavyweight, Gimme Noise has no choice but to loudly cry, "What the hell?!"

As it was in the beginning and ever shall be-- Counting Crows.

Like the mighty Ganjes River, the canal connecting the 2000s to the 1990s is positively choked with corpses, bloating in the sun with all their putrid gasses. Time and currents have shuffled a few of those cadavers to the top of this gruesome heap, but they're still just carrion.

Upon these wretched pitiables, Counting Crows and Dave Matthews Band perch especially prominently. There's still some flesh on those bones, but it's long gone cold to the touch, which gives one pause-- with the Hold Steady's new album A Positive Rage releasing on April 7, who's really gaining by pairing the hottest of the hot with the coldest of the cold?

It's hard to predict how this will break-- on one hand, it means a month of arenas for the Hold Steady. On the other, pairing them with Counting Crows is a bit like putting a jump jet in the bed of an old Ford pickup. The last time that was tried, it took CSI a week to piece the resulting explosion together and finally put a name to the poor, disintegrated sap at the steering wheel.